Feel Again
by The Great and Powerful Yamino
Summary: After being cloistered away for thirteen years, Elsa rediscovers the sensations she has missed out on.


Elsa has a new addiction. For the past thirteen years, she has had almost no physical contact with anyone, nor experienced the sensation of touch without the obstruction of a glove. Now that the option is suddenly available, she quietly revels in every opportunity.

Taking the stairs down to breakfast, the queen runs her hands along the banisters, sensing the little rivets and grain of the old carved wood. She imagines her parents, her grandparents, all the royal family before her, and how they have also left their fingerprints there, not so long ago. Sometimes Elsa imagines her little sister, sliding down the railing on her bum in her usual uncouth and carefree manner, and she smiles.

It's the first time in a decade that she has dared to eat with her bare hands, and with company at that. At dinner, Elsa privately catalogues the gleaming smoothness of her spoon, the light and brittle china plate. They feel different from the soft and gently textured tablecloth, but all are interesting, she thinks as she folds the napkin properly in her lap. Anna, who has already started eating, notices her sister's well-mannered gesture and sheepishly moves to mimic it.

But what Elsa craves most is the touch of her sister. Petting her ginger hair, so soft and coppery and fine, holding her hands, warm and eager to weave fingers between Elsa's. They rarely walk together without linking arms, Anna clinging to her sister as if she might run away or disappear behind a locked door again. Elsa hasn't yet worked up the courage to seek hugs on her own, but her hands will twitch with want and she'll shyly extend her arms just so, and Anna understands without being asked. Elsa is starved for hugs, and thankfully her sister has a limitless supply.

The world outside offers even more to explore. Not only to touch, but to smell, to see, to hear. Elsa can't stop herself from reaching out to trees to curiously run her thumb along a leaf's branching texture, or test the smell of golden flowers she has only ever seen through windows. There are sounds of summer than never reached her secluded room palace: the buzzing of insects, the swish-swish of tall grass. She has faint memories of these, but it's amazing to experience them once again in person. Elsa feels like a caged bird that has suddenly been set free. It's quite overwhelming sometimes, but at least she has a very enthusiastic guide.

"Elsa, Elsa! Come here for a second!" her sister beckons, calling her over from down the hill. Elsa chases the voice down the grassy knoll, to the sound of gurgling water. Anna is standing knee-deep in a stony brook, grinning wildly, paying no mind to the dark, half-soaked dress pooling around her. Her hands are cupped together tightly in front of her. "Come here, I wanna show you something," she urges.

Tentatively, Elsa approaches her and— making sure not to lose her balance on the slippery stone riverside— gives her sister a wary look. "This better not be anything gross. Or scary." She has many memories of playing with her sister as children, most of them cherished treasures, but also some involving horrible little creepy crawlies Anna was fond of surprising her with. Anna had always found her terrified reactions to bugs the epitome of hilarity.

"It's not gross! Come closer," Anna insists, and holds her hands forward to reveal her prize: a fat, warty blob with stubby little legs.

Elsa recoils instinctively, stumbling back. "Anna!" she yelps in horror.

Her younger sister is bewildered by the strong reaction. "What! It's just a toad!" She steps closer, prompting Elsa to back away further. "It won't hurt you, I promise. Look, he's cute."

Elsa squints through her upheld fingers. "Ugh, please, get it away from me."

The younger princess is not that easily dissuaded. "Hey, I ruined my favorite dress to catch this for you!" Anna pouts, assuming an expression about 10 years too childish for someone her age.

"That's not my fault," Elsa responds, still shielding herself from the creature with her arms. Its watery eyes seem to bore right into her soul. Just looking at its blotchy, pulsing texture makes her skin crawl. "Anna, please put that thing back where you found it. You'll get warts."

Anna just scoffs, the smirk squishing her freckles up around her eyes. "Oh, come on, Elsa. I used to catch these ALL the time as a kid, and I never got a single wart! If you give him a kiss, maybe he'll turn into a handsome prince!" Grasping the creature on either side of its writhing, slippery body, Anna holds it to face her cowering older sister. It croaks weakly in protest. Elsa thinks it is probably just as enticed by Anna's proposal as she is— that is to say, not in the slightest.

"Absolutely not," she says.

"Okay. Fine." Anna withdraws the toad. "If you won't kiss him, I will."

Elsa's face drains of color. The thought of it makes her stomach churn violently in protest. "Oh. Oh no. Please. Don't."

"Here it goes, I'm gonna do it!" Anna puckers up and slowly brings the struggling animal toward her lips, but at the last moment it manages to squirm free of her grasp and springs to escape— right onto Elsa's chest.

Elsa lets out a blood-curdling shriek unlike she or her sister have ever heard. Anna can only stare in horrified fascination as Elsa proceeds to perform a frantic dance, waving wildly and screaming all the while, with the wet little toad clinging to her for dear life. With every panicked gesture, shots of ice whizz through the air, sending Anna ducking, and the ground begins to ice over under her steps, until she slips on her own magic and falls backward into the riverbed with a graceless splash.

"Elsa!" Anna cries, rushing forward to her. Her sister's head pops up through the water, soggy and flustered. Her usually perfect hair is plastered in ribbons on her dripping face. Froths of icy slush bubble around her and bob downstream as she sputters and coughs indignantly. Her sister sheepishly stumbles down down into the water to help drag her out. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean for… oh, Elsa. Your beautiful dress… I'm so sorry…"

"It's fine… It's _fine_…" Elsa mutters, glad she opted for fabric attire instead of ice this afternoon. Having her clothes melt now would just be the cherry on top of this humiliation. The mighty queen of Arendelle brought down by a mere toad... Thank goodness nobody else had seen the incident. Elsa pulls a twig from her hair. "... Help me up before something else crawls on me."

Anna takes her by the hands, and they both crawl onto the dry safety of the hill, Anna's wet bare feet slipping on the grass and Elsa's shoes squelching out little frigid puddles in her wake. "I'm really sorry, Elsa..." Anna says again, daring a guilty glance back at her sister. "...Do you want to head back?"

Elsa plops herself down in the sun, her dress pooling in a soggy ripple around her, and sighs though her nose. "I can't go back looking like this." She trails her fingers in the grass, plucks a blade to fiddle with, and smiles unexpectedly. "I guess we can stay out a little longer. At least until we dry off."

"That's a good idea." Anna seats herself beside her sister. Elegance seems to have abandoned Elsa for the time being, making Anna feel much comfortable with herself. She sits with her elbows resting on her spread knees, hands dangling down to her ankles. "You know what I used to do when I got my clothes wet and didn't want Momma to lecture me? I'd dry it out on a rock," she says.

"Hmm. You always were an expert at misbehaving." Elsa remembers the times she had covered for her little sister's mischief, how Anna had wheedled her into cookie thefts, exploring off-limits places in the castle, drawing ice murals on the walls or building midnight snowmen. Inevitably, it was always Elsa who took the blame- she was the older one, the responsible one (the dangerous one, Elsa thinks, feeling a stab of guilt) and should have known better than to cave to her little sister's whims. But how could she say no to Anna when her excitement and glee were so infectious? Elsa's worries and sense of duty had melted under her little sister's unbridled gushes of adoration and awe. And Elsa remembers being grateful for what little validation she received.

"You know, there isn't anyone else around. If you want to dry your dress, I mean," Anna says, flicking her wrist to shake off some drips. She poses the suggestion casually, but she looks quite uncomfortable and desperate to strip hers off.

Elsa snorts. "I suppose you've scoped out all the best places to run around the forest naked." It's meant as a joke, but after a moment of consideration, Elsa decides she wouldn't put it past her.

Anna's freckles disappear into a red flush. "Hey, I had a lot of free time as a kid, okay? And I wasn't _naked._ Just in my underwear. I couldn't wear my dresses when I climbed the trees, they'd get all torn up!" She says this as though it is an obvious fact.

Elsa considers. The idea of being caught in this this disheveled state was bad enough, but if some hapless citizen came across them in an undignified state of undress she wasn't sure she'd ever live it down. And even if Anna is her sister, it's been over ten years since Elsa has undressed around anyone else.

On the other hand, the clinging heavy wetness of her dress _very_ uncomfortable.

"All right... help me." Elsa turns her back to her sister, indicating the clasps between her shoulders. She is grateful to be facing the other direction, it makes her a little less shy.

"Really? O-okay..." Anna hesitates, then scoots closer to to fiddle with the wet clasps, gingerly unhooking them one by one, exposing the delicate under-dress, which clings to her sister's every gentle curve, the pale scoop of her spine and the humble swell of her breasts. Despite performing this action by request, Anna can't help but feel like seeing this much of the guarded queen is breaking some kind of rule. Her stomach flutters.

"Thank you." Elsa manages the rest on her own, shimmying out of the heavy dress with a sigh of relief. She drapes it on the sun-heated stone beside her, and turns her attention to fixing her hair, pulling out the braid to let it fall freely so it too may dry. As she does so, she feels the anxious prickle of eyes upon her. Her heart nervously picks up its pace.

Elsa clears her throat. "Aren't you going to dry yours too?" she asks her sister, who is doing a very bad job of pretending not to stare.

Anna seems a little dazed, but catches herself and starts to fumble obediently with her own clothing, still stealing glances. She doesn't even bother to hang her dress up, forgetting it in a pile on the grass. "Elsa, you look..."

"Like a drowned rat, I know," Elsa finishes for her, tilting her face to hide behind her dripping mane of pale hair, strands of it sticking to her skin in little rivers. She self consciously attempts to smooth the wrinkled, wet underclothes, only now realizing that sopping as it is, the fine white silk may as well be transparent. Her radiating blush is even visible through it.

"No!" Anna interjects, so loudly she startles them both. She attempts to compose herself. "... Like this, you're so- I mean, I know maybe it's weird, but it's kind of- I just... You look beautiful," she manages finally.

Elsa feels an unexpected flutter in her chest. "...You're beautifuller," she responds, peeking shyly through the curtain of her hair.


End file.
